Our Talents

I was at the University of Moratuwa in this evening to participate the Presidents Installation Ceremony of the Gavel ( Toastmasters) Club. I was amazed to see the enthusiasm and the professionalism they have shown. The speeches were superb and fantastic and no doubt they are as good as many trained professional speakers.

Also they have not limited themselves for their technical studies. Most have completed CIMA and some are in the managerial level. Many have represented Sri Lanka either in sports, robotics and more importantly engineering students representing Sri Lanka for CIMA and CFA competitions.

All of them are great assets to any organisation in Sri Lanka.

Sadly the HR Practices of the corporate world in Sri Lanka is not geared to tap this talent pool. As a result we will loose most of them to Australia and UK.

It is pathetic but I do not have an answer.

what we study in the university

I was an Engineering student in the university sometimes back. After few months of graduation I gave up my carrier in Engineering and moved to Business Management, which I was passionate about. Recently, I met few of my friends who are practicing engineers. I asked them how useful the education that they had in the university for your present job? Many said they do not even use 1% of things that they have studied other than the analytical and problem solving skills that they mastered as engineering student. on contrast I still use the fundamentals I studied in CIMA, CIM and MBA.

Is our university syllabus was geared to the few who continue to study for Masters or PhDs? What about the majority who goes to the industry? Are we completely ignoring them? Is it a problem with the syllabus or with the lecturers who are pure academics?